Monday, June 20, 2011

For anyone closely following the Palestinian-Israeli issue, nothing is more insulting than the world's political players peddling another peace initiative, crusading as the ultimate formula to extract the conflict from its current abyss.

The most recent episode of such political peddling happened in rapid fire from mid-May to early June 2011, when US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu engaged in a ping-pong-like game of four days of policy speeches. The political fallout of these speeches was rather predictable. The media hailed Obama's words as historic and started to view his approach as a new set of parameters (which are actually a step back from past US parameters) that could serve to bring the parties back to the negotiations table and on a path to resolving the conflict.

Those immersed in this conflict knew better. They saw Obama's words for what they really were: a total buckling of US policy to an arrogant and intransigent Israeli prime minister who wields tremendous domestic leverage on US politics by way of the pro-Israel lobby, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). For Obama, who already has his eye on the prize of a second term, the pressure was too much to bear.

A few days later, yet another "peace initiative" was announced, this time from France. In reply to the French announcement, the June 6 Haaretz editorial title read loud and clear: "Netanyahu must accept French peace initiative". The editorial explained why:

France has placed an offer on the desk of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: Begin direct negotiations with the Palestinians in September, on the basis of the Obama plan. The proposal does not define Israel's borders, draw a map of Jerusalem or determine which settlements Israel must remove. It even helps the Israeli position in that it speaks of "two states for two peoples," in other words it acknowledges that Israel is a Jewish state. It opposes unilateral steps by either side--that is, both the expansion of Israeli settlements and the Palestinians' intention of seeking UN recognition for their state.

Anyone who knows anything about this conflict can tell you that this so-called "initiative" has as much chance of serving its proclaimed purpose as Hosni Mubarak has of being re-elected as president of Egypt.

The collective global memory seems to be in deep amnesia. We have been here before--at a point where half-baked initiatives and resolutions, non-compliant with international law and absent of any sense of historical justice, were touted as "the right formula".

Palestinians don't forget so easily, especially since their deep wounds due to dispossession since 1948, military occupation since 1967 and non-stop institutional discrimination against Palestinians inside Israel have never been given a chance to heal.

For those still believing a two-state solution paradigm is possible, one past initiative is worthy to reflect upon: that of Count Folke Bernadotte. On May 20, 1948, Count Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat and nobleman, was unanimously appointed as the United Nations mediator in Palestine, the first official mediator in UN history. He was assassinated in Jerusalem in 1948 by the militant Zionist group Lehi while pursuing his official duties. Lehi was led at the time by Yitzhak Shamir, who later became prime minister of Israel.

After unsuccessfully trying to promote the idea of a "union" between Palestine and Transjordan, he proposed two independent states. This proposal was completed on September 16, 1948, and its seven "basic premises" were:

1. Peace must return to Palestine and every feasible measure should be taken to ensure that hostilities will not be resumed and that harmonious relations between Arab and Jew will ultimately be restored.

2. A Jewish State called Israel exists in Palestine and there are no sound reasons for assuming that it will not continue to do so.

3. The boundaries of this new State must finally be fixed either by formal agreement between the parties concerned or failing that, by the United Nations.

4. Adherence to the principle of geographical homogeneity and integration, which should be the major objective of the boundary arrangements, should apply equally to Arab and Jewish territories, whose frontiers should not therefore, be rigidly controlled by the territorial arrangements envisaged in the resolution of 29 November.

5. The right of innocent people, uprooted from their homes by the present terror and ravages of war, to return to their homes, should be affirmed and made effective, with assurance of adequate compensation for the property of those who may choose not to return.

6. The City of Jerusalem, because of its religious and international significance and the complexity of interests involved, should be accorded special and separate treatment.

7. International responsibility should be expressed where desirable and necessary in the form of international guarantees, as a means of allaying existing fears, and particularly with regard to boundaries and human rights.

Although this two-state approach is more honest in its larger context (as it relates to the flawed notion of "Jewish state" and right of return of Palestinian refugees), the text in premise four demonstrates that Count Bernadotte, 64 years earlier, stated the same principle that President Obama and the most recent French "initiative" promote: setting borders not compliant with the reference at the time, which was UN Resolution 181, the Partition Plan.

Sixty-four years has only changed the reference point of borders to the disadvantage of Palestinians, and today, the forces-that-be are proposing that the 1949 Armistice line (1967 green line) not be respected. Palestinians can only expect that remaining on the same path will result in Israel gobbling up more land while the international community continues to grasp for a workable initiative. In the meantime, the entire two-state paradigm is collapsing.

That put the Jewish state among the world's top four arms exporters but declining military budgets around the world are likely to reduce sales over the coming years.

"We recognize the challenges but we're working hard to maintain the level we're currently at and even to increase it," said Reserve Brig. Gen. Shmaya Avieli, head of the Defense Ministry's Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Department.

The Israelis are hoping to secure big-ticket deals at the Paris Air Show, a major international defense industry showcase next week at the Le Bourget exhibition center.

Government figures indicate Israeli defense companies sold military hardware worth $9.6 billion in 2010, $2.4 billion of it to Israel's military.

But meantime, China, once a promising market for Israeli weapons and electronic systems, remains off-limits, largely because of Israel's ally, the United States.

The Americans blocked the sale of four $250 million Phalcon advanced early warnings aircraft to the People's Liberation Army in 2000, citing U.S. components used in the systems carried by the aircraft. Beijing was furious.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who sanctioned the Phalcon deal, is currently in Beijing, the first such visit in a decade.

Israeli officials, however, stressed the policy of no weapons sales to China is still in place.

In 2005, Israel agreed to upgrade Israeli Aerospace Industries unmanned aerial vehicles sold to Beijing in the 1990s. The United States responded by downgrading Israeli's participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program. The drone upgrade was scrapped.

The Americans remain uneasy about Israeli defense links to China, in particular about the Chengdu J-10, China's new air force fighter, which reputedly involves technology from the joint U.S.-Israeli Lavi fighter project of the 1980s.

The delta-winged Lavi, being developed by IAI, was canceled in 1987 under political pressure from Washington because of soaring costs.

The Americans, who provide Israel with $3 billion a year in military aid, were also reluctant to fund a project that would compete with Lockheed's F-16 Fighting Falcon, the leading U.S. fighter of the day.

Arieh Herzog, head of the Israeli Missile Defense Organization, said in May that Israel halted sensitive technology transfers to China in 2005 and created an office to oversee military exports.

Six years after the Pentagon blocked Israel from advanced military technology over concerns about leaks to China, Washington is once again funding Israeli high-profile air-defense missile systems development.

These focus mainly on IAI's Arrow high-altitude, long-range interceptor designed to down Iranian ballistic missiles and deployed in 2000, and the Iron Dome, intended to counter short range projectiles, which got its baptism of fire in March and April.

Iron Dome is being built by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems of Israel. The U.S. Congress authorized $205 million to support the Iron Dome program in early 2011.

India has expressed interest in the Arrow but given extensive funding provided by the United States, such sales might be problematical. In March, The Jerusalem Post reported that the Defense Ministry was discussing possible Iron Dome sales to European NATO states.

The system will be one of the main attractions in the Israeli pavilion at the Paris Air Show.

Another Israeli missile defense system, David's Sling, designed to counter medium range rockets and missiles, is currently being developed by Rafael in partnership with the U.S. Raytheon Corp.

Increasingly, Israel's defense industry is looking to the Third World for exports. Asia and Latin America, where several states' energy-fueled economies are taking off, have become prime targets, particularly since Israel's alliance with Turkey, a major arms market, collapsed in 2009.

But with defense markets generally shrinking following the global financial meltdown two years ago, and likely to be cut back further as oil prices rise again, the Israelis face growing competition from their key allies, the Americans.

U.S. arms makers are increasingly looking abroad for sales as the U.S. military budget is reduced.

U.S. defense contractors are expected to sell hardware worth a record $46.1 billion to foreign buyers in 2011. That's a nearly 50 percent hike from $31.6 billion in 2010 -- much of it to Israel's Arab adversaries.

Sunday, June 19, 2011

The West's lofty expectations for Salam Fayyad went far beyond what he was ever able to deliver.

BY NATHAN J. BROWN | JUNE 17, 2011

If Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad's political career came to an end today, he could still proudly claim to be Palestine's most accomplished prime minister ever. The problem is that all of his predecessors -- Ahmad Hilmi, Mahmud Abbas, Ahmad Qurei, and Ismail Haniyya -- were impotent, transitory, or frustrated occupants of the post, and collectively set a very low bar. But judged by the enormous expectations and hoopla his Western cheerleaders burdened him with, Fayyad will leave only disappointment behind him.

The prime minister's departure from the Palestinian political scene appears likely but not inevitable. With Fatah and Hamas striving to form a unity government, Fayyad may very well be sacrificed on the altar of Palestinian unity.

Neither the sunny nor the cynical view of Fayyad is fair. His optimistic smile obscured an impossible situation: Fayyad's main achievement has not been to build the structures of a Palestinian state, but to stave off the collapse of those structures that did exist. An equally important achievement was his ability to persuade Western observers that he was doing much more. In the process, however, he raised expectations far beyond his ability to deliver.

What Fayyad Did Not Do: In enumerating Fayyad's accomplishments, it is necessary -- if churlish -- to begin by explaining what Fayyad did not accomplish.

First, he did not build any institutions. The state-like political structures now in the West Bank and Gaza were either built during the heyday of the Oslo Process in the 1990s or in the more distant days of Jordanian and British rule.

Second, he did not bring Palestinians to the brink of statehood. The Palestinian Authority, for all its problems, was actually far more ready for statehood on the eve of the Second Intifada in 1999 than it is on the possible eve of the third in 2011. A dozen years ago, Palestine had full security control of its cities, a set of institutions that united the West Bank and Gaza, a flourishing civil society, and a set of legitimate structures for writing authoritative laws and implementing them. Those accomplishments were in retreat long before Fayyad took office, and he was hardly able to restore them.

Third, Fayyad did not strengthen the rule of law. He could not have done so, since the only legitimate law-making body the Palestinians have, the Legislative Council, has not met since he came to power.

Fourth, Fayyad did not prove to Palestinians that they should rely on themselves. Just the opposite. He showed Palestinians that if they relied on him, foreigners would show them the money. At the heady days at the beginning of Oslo, the United States pledged half a billion dollars for the entire five-year process during which the parties were supposed to negotiate a permanent agreement. They have given Fayyad more than that almost every year that he has been in office. The Europeans have opened the purse strings for him too. It is utterly baffling that a figure so completely dependent on Western diplomatic and financial support would be seen by outsiders as an icon of Palestinian self-help.

Finally, he did not bring economic development to the West Bank. What he made possible was a real but unsustainable recovery based on aid and relaxation of travel restrictions. Year- to-year economic indicators in both the West Bank and Gaza are dependent on foreign assistance, and even more on the political and security situation. Fayyad can thus take some credit for the upturn, but Hamas can make a similar claim for the mild improvements in Gaza since Israel relaxed some of the closure last year. Neither has laid the groundwork for real development or attraction of foreign investment. Nor could they in the stultifying and uncertain political environment.

None of these failings was personal. Fayyad could not have accomplished any of these goals even had he wanted to. He led half of a dysfunctional Palestinian Authority, governed scattered bits of territory in the West Bank, and was forced to rattle the cup constantly in order to pay the bills.

What Fayyad Did Do: However, if Fayyad could not walk on water, he did an almost miraculous job of not drowning. This is not to damn Fayyad with faint praise; the prime minister assumed control of a Palestinian Authority that was unable to pay all of its salaries, deeply mistrusted by Israel, and treated as irrelevant by many Palestinians.

His first and most impressive accomplishment was to gain the trust of Western governments. The unrealistic hopes placed in his premiership were partly a testimony to the esteem in which he was held in some international circles. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has spoken of her pride in his efforts and informed Palestinian youth that Fayyad has given them hope. No diplomatic statement from Western governments is complete without a kind word for his accomplishments. Fayyad was even able to earn a grudging Israeli trust through renewed security cooperation and efforts to rebuild the Palestinian security services. These accomplishments allowed him to pay government salaries, redeploy police, and attract enormous amounts of aid.

And Fayyad was able to win some modest victories in Palestinian governance. The security services became less partisan, public finances became more transparent (even without any domestic oversight), corruption likely decreased, pockets of the civil service were rebuilt on a more professional basis, and basic order in Palestinian cities was improved. When it comes to progress in these areas -- sharply limited but still significant -- Fayyad can even claim to have gone beyond maintenance to improving the Palestinian situation beyond where it stood in 1999.

The Poverty of Politics: All along, however, this was a difficult juggling act. Enthusiastic international support would continue only so long as it was possible to pretend that Fayyad was making dramatic gains; domestic acceptance of Fayyad was dependent on his continuing to pay salaries and provide for basic order. Pulling aside the curtain and revealing that Palestinians were not building a state thus risked undermining Western support for him, which would in turn remove the raison d'être of his premiership in Palestinian eyes.

Thus Fayyadism was a political house of cards. There was no domestic foundation for Fayyad's efforts; for Palestinians, he was simply an unsolicited gift from the United States and Europe -- a welcome one for some, but not for others. And to his international backers, Fayyad was completely frank about his limitations: His efforts, he said, would only pay off in the context of a meaningful diplomatic process that reinforced the drive toward statehood. This was an ingredient that has been missing for many years, and Fayyad was powerless to procure it.

Earlier this year, there were signs that Fayyad himself had begun to look for ways to escape Fayyadism. It was Fayyad, rather than Fatah and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who reached out to Hamas in February. The reconciliation file was quickly snatched out of his hands, however, and his hold on the premiership is now on the bargaining table.

What is remarkable, however, is how Fayyadism soldiered on in some Western eyes even after Fayyad himself had begun to distance himself from it. American pundits continued to trumpet his successes without missing a beat right up until the April reconciliation agreement. In March, Thomas Friedman was still writing about Fayyad's gaining momentum and even upped the ante by claiming that his program posed the "biggest threat to Iran's strategy." Meanwhile top policymakers continued to be mesmerized by Fayyad's poll numbers, which were less bad than those of most other leaders, and simply ignored the hollowness at the core of their own policies. Nor did the polls translate into any kind of political party or movement that could have run in, much less won, an election -- if one were ever held.

The Perils of Positive Thinking: For years, Fayyad's soft talk and cheery dedication enabled policymakers throughout the world to ignore the brewing crisis. And this may be where Fayyad, despite his impressive management skills, did Palestinians a disservice.

In 2009, the incoming Obama administration was quickly lured into a set of approaches (many inherited from the Bush years) that proved their complete bankruptcy this year -- ignoring Gaza and allowing its population to be squeezed hard, pretending that there was a meaningful Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process at hand, assuming that Hamas could be dealt with after the peace process and Fayyad had worked their magic, and making the paradoxical and erroneous assumption that the best way to build Palestinian institutions was to rely on a specific, virtuous individual.

Fayyad cannot be held primarily responsible for this collective self-delusion; at most, he facilitated it. And in the process he provided all actors with a breathing space that is now disappearing. Ultimately, the ones who convinced themselves he was capable of completely transforming Palestine are most responsible for squandering the brief respite his premiership offered.

Nathan J. Brown is a professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University and nonresident senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Friday, June 17, 2011

Hat's off to all contributing to the http://www.bdsmovement.net/ ... even Israeli President Peres sees the power of the non-violent tools of BDS!

Can you imagine, a state for all its citizens being equated to galloping into a wall? I wonder if Peres understands that the country he is President of built that wall!!

"Equality of Nothing" ~Edward Said,

Sam

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Ha'aretz

Published 03:01 17.06.11

Peres warns: Israel in danger of ceasing to exist as Jewish state

President says that Israel 'doomed' unless negotiations with the Palestinians leading to a peace agreement begin in the immediate future.

By Yossi Verter

President Shimon Peres is concerned that Israel might become a binational state, in which case, he warned, it would cease to exist as a Jewish state.

"I'm concerned about the continued freeze [in the peace talks]," Peres said to people who visited him this week. "I'm concerned that Israel will become a binational state. What is happening now is total foot-dragging. We're about to crash into the wall. We're galloping at full speed toward a situation where Israel will cease to exist as a Jewish state."

Peres celebrated four years as president this week. He has three years to go until he decides on his next career move. But people who met him this week found the president's mood far from festive. He prophesied that Israel would be doomed unless negotiations with the Palestinians leading to a peace agreement began in the immediate future.

"Whoever accepts the basic principle of the 1967 lines will receive international support from the world," Peres said. "Whoever rejects it will lose the world." He was referring to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vehement objection to starting peace talks on the basis of the 1967 lines, which he called "indefensible" in both the Knesset and the U.S. Congress.

But Peres continues to reject the advice of friends and various political figures that he come out openly against Netanyahu's positions. "I'm not the head of the opposition, I'm the state president," he repeatedly tells them.

Peres also voiced fear that Israel might be subjected to economic boycotts and sanctions. There's no need for boycotts," he said. "It would suffice for ports in Europe or Canada to stop unloading Israeli merchandise. It's already beginning.

"September is only a date," he added, referring to Palestinian plans to seek UN recognition as a state then. "The question is what will happen before and after."

Thursday, June 16, 2011

The word dialogue inherently bears a soft, constructive meaning that few people would quibble about. Dialogue is surely better than arguing, unquestionably better than fighting, and absolutely necessary if we are to have any success whatsoever in connecting with others on common ground, be it our neighbor, children, partner, or mother.

Add two seemingly opposite (and loaded) adjectives, Arab-Jewish, to the word dialogue and suddenly it's a whole new ball game. Now, this new concept comes with luggage of stereotypes, biases, and even a touch of racism at times. Allow me to explain.

For starters, let's see why the addition of these two seemingly innocent words, Arab and Jewish, causes such an uproar when used together. The knee-jerk reaction is that these two words are diametrically opposed. In reality this could not be further from the truth, not ideologically or practically.

Arab, as per a dictionary definition is "a member of a Semitic people originally from the Arabian peninsula and surrounding territories who speaks Arabic and who inhabits much of the Middle East and northern Africa." Jewish, as per the same dictionary, is defined as, "of or relating to Jews or their culture or religion." So Arab defines an ethnicity whereas Jewish is linked to the religion and/or culture of Judaism. Arabs are a multifaith people, they are Muslim, Christian, and yes, there are even Jewish Arabs. However, when we use that loaded term "Arab-Jewish" we are really comparing apples and oranges.

Many in the West have reduced the entire conflict in the Middle East to this superficial Arab-Jewish paradigm. Palestinians, who are the part of the Arab people at the forefront of the conflict with the State of Israel, have never, to this day, claimed that their issue is one against Jews. As a matter of fact, Palestinians have historically gone out of their way to explain that their quarrel is with the ideology of Zionism as embedded within the practices of the State of Israel and Israel's military occupation. Palestinians have no quarrel with Jews because they are Jews. It is not the Palestinians who have tried to equate Israel with only Jews. How could they, given that Palestinians--Muslim and Christian--make up over 23% of the citizenry of the State of Israel, although they are discriminated against institutionally in myriad of ways?

So, as terminology, this "Arab-Jewish" mix is not so accurate. I believe that what most people really mean is "Palestinian-Jewish Israeli," or so I hope. But, for the sake of discussion, let's ignore the semantics and look at the issue at hand, dialogue between two communities that are in conflict over a piece of land called Palestine/Israel. Is engaging in dialogue worthwhile? Is it worthwhile for over 60 years? If the positions are not known by now, will more dialogue clear things up? I do not mean to disparage these questions; they are serious ones.

I can recall growing up in Youngstown, Ohio and every so often engaging in an Arab- Jewish dialogue session. Many times we came together during difficult times. I can remember, e.g., during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982; following the Sabra and Shatila massacre during that same invasion; during the first intifada; and at other times when emotions were running high. I know the two communities across the US also engaged, immediately following the 9/11 tragedies. During all of these encounters the goals were the same: remind our respective communities that violence breeds only more violence, and that choosing to respond with common sense and education was more important than taking revenge. For the most part it worked.

Meanwhile, at times the dialogue was not crisis-oriented, but rather a proactive attempt to engage the two communities to better understand one another. This was not limited to the US but happens also here in Palestine/Israel, where there is always a theme of "people to people" events, as dialogue is frequently referred to here. The lessons of over 20 years are rather revealing. Palestinians, regardless of their religion, and Jews, regardless of their position toward Israeli politics, are stunningly similar. As a Jewish American friend of mine in New York, Adam Neiman, recently wrote, we are "loud, stubborn, passionate and opinionated." I agree.

Things become difficult when the actions of the State of Israel are inserted into the middle of the discussion. Many supposedly mainstream Jewish leaders blindly fall into trying to defend the indefensible: dispossession, discrimination, and military occupation of another people. Palestinians, as can be expected, refuse to be subjects of another state's search for their place in the world. Such a debate, after six decades of an increasingly bitter reality, could perhaps be best understood by reference to the law of diminishing returns.

What is worth dialoguing about today, just as much as yesterday, is something that is very dear to Jewish communities - social justice and equality. There is no logical reason why dialogue groups should not be taking a side in the conflict in the Middle East, not the side of Palestinians or Israelis, per se, but the side of ending the 44 years of military occupation, finally letting Palestinian refugees return home, supporting both societies to respect the equal right of the "other," and supporting the stopping of violence, all kinds of violence.

If I'm asked to choose between dialoging and fighting I will always choose dialogue without a blink; but if I'm asked to choose to fight or to dialogue with a counterpart who simultaneously is fighting my presence or funding such efforts by others, then my choice would be very different: not to fight, but to resist, and not violently, but nonviolently.

Let's all dialogue on how to join forces to bring common sense and human and civil rights back into focus, for Israelis, Palestinians, and even Jews and Arabs wherever they may be.

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American business development consultant from Youngstown, Ohio living in the Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank. He is co-author of HOMELAND: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians (1994) and may be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.

Friday, June 10, 2011

Yacoub Odeh is a long time family friend. He spent 17 hard years in an Israeli prison. His jailers we able to break open his head while in prison but could not touch his spirit of resistance. Refugees and the displaced will go home!

The ruined village Palestinians will never forget

The ruins of Lifta are the final remains of the Palestinian hamlets that fringed Jerusalem until 1948. Now plans to bulldoze them are causing outrage

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

Restricting Aid - The Challenges of Delivering Assistance in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

New report says Israeli restrictions increase costs, prevent aid from getting to those who need it most

Every month, aid and development agencies in the OPT are spending $375,000 just to work around restrictions on movement and access. While the restrictions add up to an annual cost of at least $4.5 million for donors and their taxpayers, the highest price is paid by people in the OPT according to a new report released by the Association of International Development Agencies (AIDA), a coalition of more than eighty international aid and development agencies said today.

Friday, June 03, 2011

Miko Peled is a peace activist who dares to say in public what others still choose to deny. Born in Jerusalem in 1961 into a well known Zionist family, his grandfather, Dr. Avraham Katsnelson was a Zionist leader and signer of the Israeli Declaration of Independence. His Father, Matti Peled, was a young officer in the war of 1948 and a general in the war of 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and Sinai.

Miko's unlikely opinions reflect his father's legacy. General Peled was a war hero turned peacemaker.

Miko grew up in Jerusalem, a multi-ethnic city, but had to leave Israel before he made his first Palestinian friend, the result of his participation in a dialogue group in California. He was 39.

On September 4, 1997 the beloved Smadar, 13, the daughter of Miko's sister Nurit and her husband Rami Elhanan was killed in a suicide attack.

Peled insists that Israel/Palestine is one state—the separation wall notwithstanding, massive investment in infrastructure, towns and highways that bisect and connect settlements on the West Bank, have destroyed the possibility for a viable Palestinian state. The result, Peled says is that Israelis and Palestinians are governed by the same government but live under different sets of laws.

At the heart of Peled's conclusion lies the realization that Israelis and Palestinians can live in peace as equals in their shared homeland.

Sam Bahour - Photo

About Me

Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American based in Al-Bireh/Ramallah, Palestine and is managing partner of Applied Information Management (AIM), which specializes in business development with a niche focus on start-ups and providing executive counsel.
Bahour was instrumental in the establishment of two publicly traded firms: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Center. He is currently an independent director at the Arab Islamic Bank, advisory board member of the Open Society Foundations’ Arab Regional Office, and completed a full term as a Board of Trustees member and treasurer at Birzeit University. In addition to his presidential appointment to serve as a general assembly member of the Palestine Investment Fund, Palestine’s $1B sovereign wealth fund, Bahour serves in various capacities in several community organizations, including co-founder and chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, board member of Just Vision in New York, board member and policy adviser at Al-Shabaka, the Palestinian Policy Network, and secretariat member of the Palestine Strategy Group.